Posts

Today at Hesston MB, I preached on the topic of "Worship Fully" based on one of the themes from Advent Conspiracy. For more information about Advent Conspiracy, visit their website www.adventconspiracy.org. My message was based on Isaiah 6:1-8. My intro. started with the statement to worship fully we must understand the who, what, and why of worship. I will share a few details under each of those points.

WhoThe baby in the manger is the who of worship.Notice what Isaiah notices in vs. 1-The Lord is seated on a throne, high & exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.Too often, we let things get in the way of us worshipping fully. Things such as: sports' teams, sports, careers, family/friends, TV or movie celebrities, money, technology, video games, computer/internet, books, or religion. We need to be careful to not place anyone or anything in the place of God.God is the Audience of One in worship.WhatThis is the area that causes much controversy in the …

Well, we had a great Thanksgiving together. However, it seems to be Thanksgiving night that has changed plans the last two years. Last year, we had Thanksgiving in Wichita with Bethany's family and then drove to Yates Center. In the middle of the night, Mitchell got sick and we had to pack up all the kids and head home early even though the plan was to go to Disney on Ice. The middle girls & Bethany drove to Topeka and was able to still enjoy time with the cousins.

It happened again this year. We were in Yates Center and had a good Thanksgiving meal at my Aunt Kay Jean's house. We had fun playing some card games and the cousins enjoyed playing together. Bethany had to be back to work and I wanted to work some more on my sermon so we planned to head back to Hesston on Thanksgiving night and the kids would stay in Yates Center and we would meet up with them on Saturday morning. But I got the phone call at 2 a.m. that Molly was throwing up. She was very sick and kept…

READING IN TODAY’S NEWS, One of the 29 people trapped in a New Zealand coal mine is a teenage boy who’d only been on the job for an hour when an explosion rocked the mine.Joseph Dunbar had celebrated his 17th birthday last Thursday, according to news reports from New Zealand.His mother, Philippa Timms, told the New Zealand Harold that she and her son had recently moved to the area on New Zealand’s southern island to get a fresh start in life."We moved here for Joseph, to give him a different life, a better life," the Herald quoted her as saying. Her son’s top goal soon became getting a job at the mine, she said.Can you imagine? The boy moves to a new place to get a fresh start, and after ONE HOUR on the job, he gets trapped in a mine?Over the last year, while speaking to various audiences, I have often shared a prayer God has given me to say over my family every morning. Although it is very simple, something about this prayer has resonated in many people’s heart…

The Art of Listening might well be the most the important skill a Christian must develop, because Christianity is at its essence all about the Word of God. In fact, God himself is the Word (John 1:1) and the Word became flesh (John 1:2)—safe to say that if God is the Word then how we use our ears is pretty important. Furthermore, you can only come to faith through hearing (Rom. 10:14) and then you grow mature through hearing (Matt. 13:23). The Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord (1 Sam 3:21).Do you get it? Seeing God happens through hearing. Our vision is through our ears. My friend, if you have either not yet come to Christ, or you have but are frustrated, confused, and not really growing, then I would bet big money that your problem revolves around not listening as you should. Here are some tips on listening well to a preacher, or to the Word of God in any context:1. Get in range regularlyThe reason Zacchaeus collided with Jesus was because …

Today, during my study and reading time at the Perk, I walked through several verses on the Holy Spirit. After Paul Richardson's message on Sunday, I wanted to see what Scripture said in relation to walking in the Spirit. This led me to pull out my concordance and look at every mention of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. If the verse was similar, they were combined. I hope to do more study into specific themes, but that will come in the future.

There seems to be a theme in my life right now. What does it mean to walk in the Spirit? Within the church, there seems to be two major extremes. One that abuses the idea of being led by the Spirit (i.e. God told me to tell you to give me money) and the other that is so afraid of the other extreme that it in the process squelches the movement of the Holy Spirit. Does anyone else feel this tension?

I am the first to admit that I have at times waffled between the two. Early on in my spiritual growth (college years), I was a little leery of "being filled with the Holy Spirit". This journey came to a head during a missions trip to Amsterdam where I came face to face with missionaries from another group who were very Spirit filled (speaking in tongues & being slain in the Spirit). One might expect that I quickly went to the opposite extreme. However, I was challenged because I had worked with this group for weeks and knew their hearts and desires quite well. I could…